Storytelling in Design

Book description

With the wide variety of devices, touch points, and channels in use, your ability to control how people navigate your well-crafted experiences is fading. Yet it’s still important to understand where people are in their journey if you’re to deliver the right content and interactions atthe right time and on the right device.

This practical guide shows you how storytelling can make a powerful difference in product design. Author Anna Dahlström details the many ways you can use storytelling in your projects and throughout your organization. By applying tried-and-tested principles from film and fiction to the context of design and business, you’ll learn to create great product experiences.

  • Learn how the anatomy of a great story can make a difference in product design
  • Explore how traditional storytelling principles, tools, and methods relate to key product design aspects
  • Understand how purposeful storytelling helps tell the right story and move people into action
  • Use storytelling principles to tell, sell, and present your work

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Table of contents

  1. [ Preface ]
  2. Chapter 1. Why Storytelling Matters
    1. How This All Started
    2. The Role of Stories Throughout History
    3. The Medium of Stories
    4. The Role of Personal Storytelling in Day-to-Day Lives
    5. Storytelling Today
    6. Stories as a Persuasion Tool
    7. The Role of Storytelling in Product Design
    8. Summary
  3. Chapter 2. The Anatomy of a Great Story
    1. The Architect Analogy of Explaining UX
    2. Aristotle’s Seven Golden Rules of Storytelling
    3. The Three Parts to a Story
    4. The Art of Dramaturgy
    5. What Dramaturgy Teaches Us About Product Design
    6. The Circular Nature of Digital Product Experiences
    7. Five Key Storytelling Lessons
  4. Chapter 3. Storytelling for Product Design
    1. When Any Device, Used Anywhere and at Any Time, Is Your Starting Point
    2. How Traditional Storytelling Is Changing
    3. How the Landscape of Product Design Is Changing
    4. Changes in Consumer Expectations
    5. Summary
  5. Chapter 4. The Emotional Aspect of Product Design
    1. Shouting at the Voice Assistant
    2. The Role of Emotion in Storytelling
    3. The Role of Emotion in Product Design
    4. Emotions and Our Different Levels of Needs
    5. Understanding Emotions
    6. Situations Where Emotion in Design Can Play a Key Role
    7. What Storytelling Can Teach Us About Evoking Emotions in Product Design
    8. Summary
  6. Chapter 5. Defining and Structuring Experiences with Dramaturgy
    1. Understanding and Defining Your Product Life Cycle
    2. The Role of Dramaturgy in Storytelling
    3. The Role of Dramaturgy in Product Design
    4. Variations on the Three-Act Structure
    5. Applying Sequencing and Mini-Stories to Product Design
    6. The Difference Between Acts, Sequences, Scenes, and Shots
    7. Understanding Plot Points
    8. Plot Points in Product Design
    9. Typical Experience Structures of Common Product Life Cycles
    10. How to Use Dramaturgy and Plot Points to Define the Narrative Structure of Product Experiences
    11. Summary
  7. Chapter 6. Using Character Development in Product Design
    1. Reluctance to Use Personas
    2. The Role of Characters and Character Development in Storytelling
    3. The Role of Characters and Character Development in Product Design
    4. The Different Actors and Characters to Consider in Product Design
    5. The Importance of Character Development
    6. What Traditional Storytelling Teaches Us About Characters and Character Development
    7. Character Definition Versus Character Development Versus Character Growth
    8. Tools for Character Definition and Development in Product Design
    9. Summary
  8. Chapter 7. Defining the Setting and Context of Your Product
    1. Once Doesn’t Mean Always
    2. The Role of Setting and Context in Storytelling
    3. The Role of Setting and Context in Product Design
    4. A Look at Context in Product Design
    5. A Definition of Contextual Products and Context-Aware Computing
    6. Working Through the Context
    7. Embracing the Complexity of Context
    8. The Factors and Elements That Make Up Context in Product Design
    9. What Storytelling Teaches Us About Setting and Context
    10. Summary
  9. Chapter 8. Storyboarding for Product Design
    1. One Document to Capture It All
    2. The Role of Storyboarding for Film and TV
    3. The Role of Storyboarding in Product Design
    4. Using Storyboards to Help Identify the Invisible Problem and/or Solution
    5. Creating Storyboards
    6. Ways to Incorporate Storyboards into the Product Design Process
    7. Summary
  10. Chapter 9. Visualizing the Shape of Your Product Experience
    1. “The Website Knows Me and What I Want”
    2. The Shape of Stories
    3. The Shapes of Experiences
    4. Two Ways to Define the Shape of an Experience
    5. When and How to Visualize an Experience
    6. Summary
  11. Chapter 10. Applying Main Plots and Subplots to User Journeys and Flows
    1. The Ideal Journey
    2. The Role of the Main Plot and Subplots in Traditional Storytelling
    3. The Role of the Main Plot and Subplots in Product Design
    4. Types of Subplots
    5. What Storytelling Teaches Us About Working with Main Plots and Subplots
    6. Summary
  12. Chapter 11. Theme and Story Development in Product Design
    1. Using Real Content
    2. The Role of Theme and the Red Thread in Storytelling
    3. The Role of Theme and the Red Thread in Product Design
    4. Approaches to Developing Your Story in Traditional Storytelling
    5. What Storytelling Teaches Us About Theme and Developing Your Product Story
    6. Summary
  13. Chapter 12. Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Stories and Modular Design
    1. One Page for Every Athlete
    2. CYOA Books and Modular Stories
    3. CYOA and Product Design
    4. The Case for Modularity in Product Design
    5. The Need to Focus on the Building Blocks Rather Than the Page or View
    6. Common Patterns in Choice-Based Stories
    7. Key Principles from CYOA Structures Applied to Product Design
    8. What Product Design Can Learn from CYOA
    9. Summary
  14. Chapter 13. Applying Scene Structure to Wireframes, Designs, and Prototypes
    1. The Things That Didn’t Fit Above the Fold
    2. The Role of Scenes and Scene Structure in Product Design
    3. Elements of a Scene
    4. Elements That Help Tell the Story of a Page or View
    5. What Scenes Teach Us About How to Define the Story of the Page or View
    6. Summary
  15. Chapter 14. Presenting and Sharing Your Story
    1. How Storytelling Helped Save the Day
    2. The Role of Storytelling for Presenting Your Story
    3. What Traditional Storytelling Can Teach Us About Presenting Your Story
    4. Summary
  16. [ Index ]

Product information

  • Title: Storytelling in Design
  • Author(s): Anna Dahlström
  • Release date: December 2019
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781491959428